In some networks, access points (APs) may be wireless control plane (WCP) managed devices. Traditionally, WCP functionality has co-existed with the wireless switching plane (WSP) on a wireless controller (WC). In this model, client data is tunneled by the APs to the WC, which then switches the data. With WLAN becoming one of the main access mediums and with the advent of high-speed wireless access (e.g., 802.11n and 802.11ac), the WC may become a bottleneck.
In order to compensate for the WC bottleneck, architectures have been developed in which the WCP is separated from the WSP. In this way, the WCP and WSP can scale independently. The WSP functionality has been embedded into switches and APs.
Also, the WCP functionality is increasingly provided as a virtual appliance or virtual machine (VM). The WCP-VM instances can be executed on private or public clouds by customers or users. These WCP instances manage the switches and the APs deployed inside the enterprise to provide WLAN functionality.
There may be some limitations with conventional approaches to virtual WCPs. For example, the number of instances and specifications of each WCP-VM instance may depend on the number of APs and the number of clients (peak) that need to be supported. For example, to support 2000 APs and 10,000 client devices, 8 to 10 WCP VM instances would be needed.
In some deployments, such as enterprises and schools, the peak load may exist only for certain hours during the day (e.g., during the daytime for approximately 10-12 hours). During the other hours, the load on the WCPs in these deployments may be minimal to none.
Conventional WCPs may not differentiate between idle and peal times. For example, conventional systems may operate the same number of instances (with the same specifications) during idle and peak times. Further, the APs may keep sending status and statistics reports and keep-alive signals to the WCP, which remains active to process these messages.
The above-mentioned problems and limitations with some conventional WCP VM systems can lead to increased or wasteful costs (e.g., by paying for unnecessary cloud hosting time for VM instances that are idle) and increased or wasteful power usage (e.g., due to the same number of WCPs running all the time regardless of the load on the network).
Embodiments were conceived in light of the above mentioned needs, problems and/or limitations, among other things.